If women weren't in the house to see it, would a man cave exist? Apparently, yes. A few men (and women) have created their own space that's for guys only. The Journal asked readers to tell us about their man caves. Here are some of their stories:

Ram Room lurks beneath

For years, I have indulged my wife, Ari, by not getting in the way of deciding which house we got to buy and how to decorate it, from every piece of furniture to that silly little bowl of potpourri in the bathrooms, with her specified color and scent. A couple of years ago, she decided she wanted a bigger custom-built home. Of course, I said, "Whatever you want."

She had no idea of the master plan I had of my own man cave in our future new home.

When we closed on our new home, I had convinced my wife that I could finish the first level of our home by myself. It was only two bedrooms and a bath, right? Finally, the unfinished wooden-frame-bare-concrete-floors-wires-sticking-out-first-level-space was mine.

Several months later, the second story of our new home was "perfect," according to my wife. But lurking below, I had started work on my man cave. Specifically, it is my St. Louis Rams-themed, big-screen-HDTV with DVD, dark cave with mini-fridge full of refreshments, X-Box 360, elliptical exercise machine, hide-a-bed, Scarface dart board man with access to a grill on the patio man cave. It comes complete with adjoining Dodger-themed, man-sized, comfort-height toilet and man cave bathroom. No potpourri allowed.

The paint was the licensed Ram colors of blue and gold. The walls and carpet are blue. The trim, surface-mounted ceiling tiles and furniture are gold. The bathroom ceiling is licensed Dodger blue and the walls are the "away" jersey-gray. The towels are jersey number red. I had "dug" my own man cave by myself.

To safeguard any meddling in my Ram Room, I finished the second bedroom to my wife's specifications and it has become her little-woman cave.

While I don't spend all of my time at home in the Ram Room, I occasionally retreat to the cave to watch or play a game, use the elliptical, make some wild-game jerky or to catch up on some work with my fellow male cave dwellers, Louis the cat and Lorenzo the ferret.

-Bryan Andersen, Rapid City

A shrine to beer

My wife has allowed me to transform our third bedroom into a shrine to beer. I have the room decorated with over 65 beer serving trays, 30-plus beer glasses, numerous bottles and cans, mirrors and posters, a collection of beer salt and pepper shakers, beer X-mas lights, etc. The room is highlighted by a Budweiser ceiling fan and an antique Hamms metal cooler.

One wall also contains a collection of over 110 baseball caps.

-Bob Littrell, Rapid City

Savoring the stuff of the work room

We live in a townhouse with a full basement. One room, having no windows in the basement, I took for my "work room." I have done some fairly big projects in this room, such as finishing a bathroom, a laundry room and a family room in the basement and an island counter for our kitchen.

It also works well for a place for me to close my door and smoke my pipe without smelling up the whole house. As I sit savoring my Sir Walter Raleigh and look around, I see a table saw, an old router, miscellaneous carpenter tools, all sorts of containers of different sizes of screws, nails and such. There are also boxes and albums of old pictures, some dating back 70 or more years. There is a super-8 movie camera, projector and old home movie film - probably too brittle to use. There is a half-dead IMac and a dead printer. I look up at the ceiling joists and see an unopened package of Pergo flooring left from our kitchen floor, pieces of suspended ceiling metal and scraps of wood.

And that is just the tip of the iceberg. I sit here, smoke my pipe and wonder, "What am I ever going to do with all this stuff?" Any offers?

-Carl "Bud" Anderson, Rapid City

Racing space

We bought our house a year ago this past September, and have done a lot of "making it ours." Melanie, my significant other, encouraged me to make the main part of the downstairs "MINE." So with a TON of help from her, this is what we did.

I'm a big NASCAR fan, used to root for Mark Martin, and when he was supposed to retire, I started rooting for Kasey Kahne. I repainted the room, put a big-screen TV in it (the better to watch the races, although, I still haven't made the jump to HD.) Melanie and I made the shadow boxes, bar and mirror behind the bar. The black and white squares on the wall are all hand-painted … what a project that was. FUN, but a ton of time there.

There is room to watch the race, throw darts, drink a beer AND we have a fold-up poker table for eight to 10 to play Texas hold 'em. This is MY area, and it's been a blast putting it together.

It's one of those projects that will never be finished as we add stuff all the time. Pictures of our vacations, trophies won from darts, as well as racing motorcycles are still waiting to be added … somewhere. I'd like to eventually add a pinball machine or some kind of slot machine, or maybe even both. Not too overboard but when one enters, they know I'm a race fan.

-Thomas Parson, Rapid City

Our man cave isn't anything like you would see on HGTV/DIY. But every year since we lived here, at the start of football season, six TVs make it into our very little living room. With Direct TV's Sunday NFL ticket with four different games on four TVs, one game on the local channel and the other on the NASCAR race, it is a very popular place. I usually have 10 to 14 teenage boys here every Sunday.

Because I love to cook, my husband and I feed them breakfast and then feed them again in the late afternoon. For Christmas, I decoupaged the regulars' pictures of their favorite team on their own TV trays. Because they are all seniors, the TV trays will all be going off to college this year. People always question, "Why I would do that?" I always say, "Why wouldn't you?"

Feeding a dozen teenage boys every weekend - pricey; NFL Sunday Ticket on six TVs - lots; memories-theirs and ours - priceless.

-Cheryl Boughton, Rapid City

A man cave reveals the man

The idea of a "man cave" has to be as ancient as man himself. Dating back to the instinct of a safe den and a humble home, the cave has been a symbol of security and family center for a long time. It's been a place to build dreams and organize ideas for thousands of years.

If you have an area to lay out your thoughts and assemble the components of your desire, then you have a method of building things that have previously just been kicking around in your head. If your den sparks inspiration, despite whatever the amount of clutter it has, then it is serving its purpose as an imagination station. Sometimes the cave is organized only by a function of memory and recall, because much of it can be littered with a cacophony of debris and overflow. Only the most desperate of projects can survive in this environment.

So the "man cave" can be a rally site, or a confusion junction, depending on the efforts of the owner. I prefer a well-organized area with spaces for tools, supplies, storage and workspace. This way, it lets me be efficient with my efforts in the cave and frugal in my time indoors. A well-organized shop shows a fine-tuned mind, but sometimes there is a baseline for debris, because it shows a respect for the table for awhile. Sometimes when they are laid out in all their randomness, a certain connectivity can appear, that you didn't see before. Such is the magic of a well-built man cave, one that is creative, as well as being useful. One that is a den, as well as just a room, and a locale for inspiration that is unlike any other. A true man cave, with all the bows and arrows and animal hides that invariably come in life, hanging on the walls, tells a coherent story, as well as being a statement about the complexity of life and all its details. A man cave can tell a lot about its owner, and it can tell you especially about his dreams.

-Riley White, Rapid City